First Cycle - Test Prop - Log

Figured I’d keep a log in hopes that it’ll help others out. This is my first cycle.

tl;dr - skip to the === AAS === tag if you don’t care about background

Background - 26 y/o, 225lb @ 6’2" and about 12% BF. 10 year training history, currently competitive powerlifter in the 220lb class. Competing for 3 years with current best competition numbers 445 (raw w/ wraps) / 305 / 555. That was a year ago and I’m on track for about 485 / 325 / 565 in a competition soon. That’s without the new “supplements” I’m taking of course.

I’ve been considering AAS since I was 18. I’m glad I waited since I’ve made some accomplishment I’m reasonably proud of. I’ve gotten to the point where I feel I’ve dialed in every variable (diet, training, recoevery) pretty well. Not perfectly, and I’d be lying if I said I’d tried every avenue possible ever. But I am consistent and work my ass off.

Over the last 5 years I’ve missed less than 2 scheduled training days a year - that includes training when sick. I’ve eaten hellishly strict diets for 6+ months straight (and after that stuck to it, just loosened it a bit). Further, I’ve read Anabolics (the '09 edition) cover to cover twice, read through tons of stuff on TNation, HyperMuscle, and a few other forums and read plenty of other material as well.

All in all, I felt the time was right to try out AAS. I know how I learn and I can’t get that much more out of book learning. Some will agree with that decision and some won’t, I’m not trying to change your minds, just explain my decisions for others to learn from what I do right and wrong.

I’ll get to the cycle in a second, but here’s diet and training split:
Diet:
Minimum 250g protein, ideal 300g protein a day from whole animal sources. No protein powder, just whole foods. This breaks down into 5-6 meals of 50g of protein over the course of the day, 2-3 hours apart.
300g carbs a day - spread out into each meal. This is pretty much just 1 cup of dry oats per meal (or at least that has been so for 3 months now. I’m pretty good with monotony).
Whatever fats come from the above. I don’t track fats. Meat is mainly bison so not super lean but not super fatty.

I can talk about other diets I’ve done in the past (CBL, High Fat, Paleo) if people are interested, I’ve run all of those for 6+ months each (strict) but I’ll skip that for now.

Training is currently managed by top powerlifter. I don’t want to go into specifics for anonymity reasons as most coaches have something their known for. I have 4 main training days a week which start focused around the main lift, with 8-10 sets in the 80-90% range and then run about 4 accesories per day, also fairly heavy and large compound movements. My “off” days are extra volume for my hips, groin (don’t underestimate it), VMO and core.

=== AAS ===
My main goal is to learn how my body reacts to pure Testosterone. Gains are seconday to be honest. I’d like moderate LBM increase and moderate strength gains with minimal sides. If I run this and gain only one pound and no strength, that’s fine. If I gain no weight and 5 pounds on the squat, that’s fine. I really just want to dip my feet in the water and see how I react to low dosages.

First Cycle is basic, minimal and short - only 2 weeks. After that I’m taking 2 weeks off and reevaluating. Plan is for another 2 week cycle then of Test and Tren (300/300).

This cycle:
Day 1 - 100mg Test Prop.
Day 2-14 - 50mg Test Prop.
(total 350mg / wk test)

Day 1-14 Adex @ .25mg EOD
Day 15-28 Nolva @ 20mg / day

A couple explanation points:

  1. 350mg / week seemed high enough to be supraphysiological and to notice effects but not high enough to be near dangerous territory.
  2. I chose a short cycle (a series of them) because I don’t want a large mass gain, and I want to minimize HPTA shut down because of some timing issues around when I’ll be coming off.
  3. I chose Test Prop for three reasons - (A) I can run it for 2 weeks only (B) If I see negative sides or turn chickenshit it clears my system in a short time (C) I can manipulate the dose mid-cycle if I need
  4. I’m running adex because after seeing all the sides of too low estrogen vs. too high estrogen, I’d rather flirt on the too-low side. Plus, I want to minimize water retention. I’ll be getting bloodwork done a week in and will readjust based on Estradiol levels.
  5. Bridging with Nolva (day 15-28) was on the fence, but seemed better safe than sorry. I haven’t seen many (any?) posts about “I accidentally used nolva in PCT and it made things way worse”.

I wanted to throw Tren and either Anavar or DBol in this cycle, but I took the advice of “keep it simple” first cycle - so I kept it brutally simple.

I’ve already done the first shot, I’ll write that up in another post since this one is already brutally long :slight_smile:

Reserved

Your adex is WAYYYYY too high IMO. I’m on TRT, running 180mg a week and I get by just fine with 0.25mg adex 2x a week. So at 350mg a week you still shouldn’t need more than around 1mg a week total dosage. I’ve had my E2 undetectable on the sensitive assay because of too much adex in the past, and it sucked ass.

=== Getting stuff ready ===

Can’t go into sources at all. I think I can say that I got stuff online, since it’s not exactly news that the internet in general is a source. Can’t say more than that though.

I can summarize my experience in trying to find a place though (in broad strokes) by saying you really have no idea what you’re getting until you get it. You can read as many threads as you want, reviews as you want, but there’s no way you ever will know. You just have to decide if you want to take the plunge.

I got my hands on the stuff extremely quickly after ordering. I only halfway knew the small box I was carrying home had AAS in it. It’s a bit of a wierd feeling when you open it up and are staring straight at this stuff. For one thing, a 10mg bottle is really, really tiny. It looks like something for a small animal, not something to make a freakishly jacked human out of.

Went to my local grocery store to get pins. I was coming home from work and was well dressed (collared shirt and all that) and just walked right up the the pharmacist and said “I need to get some syringes and needles for intramuscular injection, please” and without a moments pause she said “sure, do you know which sizes you need?”. There was no dramatic drawn out pause while she sized me up or anything. Could have been asking for Tylenol.

Grabbed 30x 3ml syringes (I’m pinning 1ml, but bigger is always better, right!), 25g and 21g needles. That plus alcohol and swabs was about $25.

First mistake: Forget to check the length of the needles. The 25g are 5/8". Bummer. More on that later.

Got home, showered off and thought to myself, “well, might as well take the plunge”. I’ve used some other substances in the past (in countries where it was legal) so I’m used to the “about to put something in my body I’m not 100% sure about” nerves. Still, I sat there for about a minute giving this one last contemplation. Then I grabbed the alcohol bottle and got on with it.

Back to the needles for a second - I bought 5/8". Not ideal. Almost all the advise online was that 5/8" was a fine size… for a child. I did a quick computation in my head - I carry a bit more fat on my glutes, so if I go there I might inject into fat. I know from research that’s not dangerous, but will slow down absorption. My glute may be a bit fatty but my thighs are lean. Hrm. Pinched em, not too fat at all. All in all I decided that that seemed like a good enough spot, I probably would be deeper than any fat and the worst case is slow absoprtion. Decided to go for it and grab 1" needles tomorrow (maybe).

Swabbed the vial, put an X on the injection site for reference then swabbed it. Attached the 21g needle, popped the top off, stuck it into the vial and started to draw. Oops, forgot to pull air into the needle. Take it out, pull air in, stick into the vial, air into the vial and gear into the syringe. Syringe out, push air bubbles out. Pop the 21g off, put the 25g on. Push air out again (safe vs sorry).

Moment of truth - pulled the skin to the side and pushed the needle in, really really softly because I’m a big softie apparently. After some resistance, it broke the skin, then a bit more and it slid into what I’m assuming is the muscle. After the resistance of the skin it slid super, super smoothly in. Didn’t hurt at all the whole time. I then tried to aspirate but couldn’t get enough pressure on the syringe one handed. I left the skin go, then thought “s**t, that was dumb” and pulled it back again. This whole time the syringe is bobbing in and out as the muscle moves around by about 1/8". Stupid. Finally get back in position and aspirate and got a tiny air bubble, phew. Then I pushed the plunger down gently, the whole cc took about 15-30s I think. Then syringe out, one more alcohol swab and good to go. Just a drop of blood.

At this point it’s about 2 hours later and the best thing has happened: nothing. I’ll get back on here after tomorrow’s injection and give a status update! P.S. Don’t worry, these won’t be daily.

[quote]46and2 wrote:
Your adex is WAYYYYY too high IMO. I’m on TRT, running 180mg a week and I get by just fine with 0.25mg adex 2x a week. So at 350mg a week you still shouldn’t need more than around 1mg a week total dosage. I’ve had my E2 undetectable on the sensitive assay because of too much adex in the past, and it sucked ass. [/quote]

Yeah - I actually wanted to run 12.5mg a day to start out but couldn’t cut the pills into 8. Don’t know why I didn’t just write up .25mg EOD. Updated the above to that.

Well, nothing interesting to report so far. First injection was 100mg in the right thigh and that was a bit sore 12 hours later. It’s 36 hours later an there’s still a bit lingering but nothing bad at all. Same as a light bruise. Not even as bad as a vaccination in the deltoid.

2nd shot (right thight) was only 50cc and I can barely feel any soreness there. The soreness might just be from lifting.

Now time to keep this up for a few weeks and see what the hell happens.

5/8" needles are deep enough. The gear still gets 100% absorbed.

1mg/anastrozole per week is typically good for a TRT dose of 100mg/week T cyp/eth.
That is supported by labs.
There are some guys who are anastrozole over-responders who need 1/4th of the expected doses.
You can get anastrozole in a liquid or dissolve pills in vodka to make up 1mg/ml and dispense by volume or by the drop.

Only truth for one individual is lab results.

Overall, the amount of anastrozole needed is 1mg/week for every 100mg T per week. Anastrozole is a competitive drug and needs to match serum FT or bio-T levels.

In a TRT context, E2=22pg/ml seems to be a sweet spot for energy, libido, fat profiles and mood. We have lots of lab work to go on.

KSMan - thanks for the info! That matches really well what I’ve been noticing. Anyways, weekly update below.

Dosage-wise I decided two days in to increase the dose to 70mg ED - 490mg a week. Granted, this stuff is UGL quality and I can’t speak to the true dosing so don’t read into that specific number too much.

As mentioned in background, my diet is very strictly controlled. Outside of AAS use I can predict my bodyweight on any given day within about a half a pound based on the previous days food (because the food is always the same). Given this, I was noticing I was holding significantly more water than normal given my carb doses, so I upped the arimidex dose to exactly what KSMan was mentioning. It seems to have had the desired affect, I feel just a tad drier which is where I wanted to be. Granted, I’m ony a week in.

A few learnings that might be useful to other “noobs”:

  • I’ve pinned bicep, delt, thigh, glute (right only - can’t reach the left) and ventroglute. Favorite by far is VG - the needle slipped right in and there was NO pip. I did the shot sitting because I couldn’t relax enough standing. Worst site is the bicep. PIP was pretty miserable and there was some noticeable swelling. I also really liked the thigh, not much issue there. Delt and glute were fine. I know this is individualized so mileage may vary - but it’s worth learning the VG shot.
  • People talk about feeling like superman on gear. For me (moderate dose of test - nothing nuts) the best way I can describe it is if you’ve ever been going through a normal week and just had an awesome day, it’s kind of like that. “General wellbeing”.
  • I’m a fairly aggresive guy in general - not day to day but in the gym. This went next level. I’ve cut way back on coffee because I haven’t needed it, I’ve been buzzing with energy and ready to tear the doors off of something. It’s generally tough to quantify feelings like this. One extrapolition might be workout volume, working weights and their speed. I hit a big volume PR (15% more than normal for someone whose done this for years is a pretty staggering jump) and was working at weights about 3-5% higher than last week. To some that may seem neglible but again, when you’re pretty highly trained a 3-5% jump raises an eyebrow. My working weight variance week to week is usually 1-2% (and has been for 6-8 months). Small difference but I believe statistically significant.
  • I haven’t seen a large change in scale weight - which is good, as I didn’t want that. However, before running the gear I had been running about 500-600g carb a day - 50g in each of the first 4-5 meals and then a huge sugary dinner. I cut that “Backload” out since it was only resulting in fat gain. When I do that, I usually lean down to 220-225 very quickly - however, now I’m hovering between 225-228. Again, not a huge change, but given how consistent I’ve been in this area for years, I have reason to believe there may be another pound or two in there - some of which will of course be water.

Not surprising at a moderate dose, but I haven’t noticed any side effects. Back is clear, nips are fine, hair growth is unaffected. “The boys” seem a tad smaller… but I can’t back that up, and I’m likely just overindexing on that. Libido is great - dangerous even, hehe. Normally I’m attracted to a pretty standard range of women, but I’ve noticed that’s broadened a bit - literally. For some reason I keep having “unpure” thoughts about some bigger girls. If you’re deathly afraid of being caught with a big girl, beware the Test!

I’m going to get a general lipid/kidney/blood panel next week because the goal of this cycle was primarily to see how I respond to test. Since I’m on only a moderate dose for a short time, I don’t expect to see much. However, I wouldn’t be able to know that without checking, so I will. Then it’s two weeks off, 10 days into being off (12 days after last shot) I’ll be getting a hormone panel done to see where everything is at. That should be interesting - some data to back up the “2 weeks on doesn’t shut you down” hypothesis. If all is well then, I’ll be running 2-3 weeks of:

210mg Test Prop / wk
210mg Tren Ace / wk
30 mg Winstrol ED

I may scale up the dosages to 280mg of test/tren and 45mg winny a week in, but I want to see how I respond to the androgens first.

Oh - another couple practical tips on injections, because that’s definitely one of the things that to me was the “scariest” part of this for someone that’s never injected themselves before:

  • On some sites I couldn’t use the Z-Track method. It didn’t matter, no oil seeped out and bleeding was unaffected. Note: I’m only putting .7ml in and an inch deep. Larger volumes might be an issue.
  • Sometimes while the pin is in the muscle will flex or twitch. Twice I accidentally let go of the skin when doing Z-Track and the needle slid a few inches sideways. That freaked me out, but PIP was no different and nothing terrible happened (I thought it would tear a bunch of fibers but that doesn’t seem to be the case). Not saying you should aim for this but if it happens don’t freak out.
  • Getting leverage for aspiration can be a pain. I can’t imagine how somebody with weak hands would do it on some spots. Consider that before you pick a site you can barely reach.
  • I’ve got jittery hands. It hasn’t seemed to affect PIP. Same kind of thing as the accidentally twitching muscle, it seems like it might tear you up but in practice it doesn’t seem to matter.
  • The site will swell after pinning it. That doesn’t mean it’s growing or that a site injection magically grew your biceps an inch.
  • I’ve pinned sites and trained 20 minutes later, and I’ve pinned sites I haven’t used for a day or two. No difference noted.
  • There does seem to be something to the “virgin site” idea. The second pin to my right thigh was way better feeling than the first.
  • I was initially re-capping my needles (I know that’s a no-no) and throwing them in a double-bagged plastic bag. The re-cap WILL slip off. Make sure to discard of the needles in something puncture-proof.
  • I initially was pushing the needle in super slowly. That made breaking the skin hurt a lot more than it needed to. Now I do a quick jab to break the skin, than slip it in to the muscle slowly. That feels great.

There is no need for Z-track. Useless babble.

You should press for 10 seconds on injection site after injecting. This allows blood vessels to close off and prevents bleed bruising.

Last injection was on Tuesday, so I’ve been off for two days now.

Added in 60mg/day Winny last Friday and ran it through Thursday morning, so I’ve been clear of that for 24 hours.

Starting Nolva today at 20mg ED, will run that for a week then get bloodwork done.

Overall - strength levels increased while on cycle slightly. Working weight with squat went up 6%, although Bench and Deadlift didn’t really move much. Granted, the extra squat weight plus where I am in my meet prep had me at 145% of normal volume on squat day, which just made be brutally exhausted for the rest of the week. So, likely all lifts are up a tad but I couldn’t express that due to fatigue.

Bodyweight increased nicely - although that’s about half the picture. I probably lost 2-3% bodyfat over the two weeks - I don’t have a bodpod or anything but I’m noticeably leaner. This makes sense because I cleaned up my diet when I started. However, I didn’t lose weight. I’m probably up about 3-4 pounds on the scale (tough to pinpoint because of day to day water fluctuations), and I can see extra fullness in every muscle group. It’s always tought to tell such minor fluctuations, but I’ve been stagnant at the same bodyweight for so long I can say with confidence that I’m leaner and larger than I was going in.

I could tell on Thursday that the test levels were lower. I didn’t feel as aggresive in the workout and didn’t have that extra oomph that I was feeling. Note - on Thursday I’d have about 30% of the test in my system vs. Tuesday, effectively at a TRT level. Wednesday night I had the best sleep I’ve had in two weeks. Other than the minor, minor insomnia I didn’t really notice any sides. Skin was a bit oilier and I got a pimple or two but that’s not shocking, nothing bad (we’ll see if there’s any rebound in PCT). I also notice I stank like a dog when I sweat which was never an issue before. I didn’t really mind that though… I just decided that was the smell of testosterone seeping out of my body and that seemed pretty badass.

Now it’s a week of Nolva (20mg ED) then bloodwork. I’d like to get the all-clear after a week of Nolva (proving that the cycle was barely suppresive at all), but if things look low then I’ll extend PCT.

17 days total (use the whole 1000mg bottle):
Day 1-15 Test Prop 40mg ED (280mg / wk)
Day 1-15 Tren Ace 60mg ED (420mg / wk)
Day 1-17 Winny 60mg ED
Day 1-17 Adex .25mg EOD (carefully watching this since overall test levels are lower)
Day 18-32 Nolva 20mg ED

This was the original cycle I’d wanted to run but I felt dipping my toe in with Test first was a good idea before jumping onto Tren.

Alright, wrapped up 2 weeks PCT and got bloodwork done. Hadn’t had any Nolva, Adex or anything in 5 days and 12 days after last injection. All blood levels are well within normal ranges, as expected for a 2 week cycle with only test.

I gained and retained 5 pounds - although the story is a bit more complicated than that. I dropped about 3-4% bodyfat (diet related) and held or grew muscle. Normally when doing this I’d shrink down to 218-220, I’ve been consistently at that weight for 2 years with a stable diet. Except, this time, I ended up at 225. So, I won’t say I “gained 5 pounds of muscle”, but there’s a combination of preventing catabolism while on a restricted diet + anabolism going on that accumulated to 5 pounds heavier bodyweight at a given bodyfat percentage.

I’m jumping into the 2nd 2-weeker now, but making it a bit more interesting:
60mg Tren-Ace ED
40mg Test Prop ED
60mg Winny ED
10mg Nolva ED
.25mg Adex EOD

Will update in a week or two with info.

Hey Ross - thanks for the reply! I’ve been following your log for a few weeks now, congratulations on the progress man, you’ve been killing it!

I’ve got a competition on the horizon and I’m mainly trying to fill out my weight class, so I only need to add another 5 pounds or so. If I stretch out to a full 6-8 week cycle I expect I’d blow way by that. The 2 week on / 2 off allows me to really fine tune the weight gained and avoid total shutdown. I was something Bill Roberts and other kicked around (and a few people tried) on the forum a few years back with good results. None of the crazy mass main gain seen on longer cycles but that works great for me!

Next Jan/Feb I’m planning to run a more standard 6-8 week on short esters to pop up a weight class.

Really excited about the Tren. Powerlifters love it. Would love to try Halo at some point but I don’t have a source for it, and want to get as much as I can out of the less harsh compounds first.

Good luck with the rest of your cycle!

Powerlifter - great log mate really helpful, I’m currently planning my 2nd cycle, looking at 200Test-P and 400Tren-A P/w 6-8 weeks. I’m a powerlifter too so will definitely be following. Question: How come Adex? Did you consider something like PES ERASE at any stage? I have this on hand

[quote]applenow wrote:
Powerlifter - great log mate really helpful, I’m currently planning my 2nd cycle, looking at 200Test-P and 400Tren-A P/w 6-8 weeks. I’m a powerlifter too so will definitely be following. Question: How come Adex? Did you consider something like PES ERASE at any stage? I have this on hand[/quote]

The tren I got turned out to be bunk - bloodwork is coming in on Monday but I believe the Prop was legit so weight is up but I can’t really comment on Tren at all.

Adex is in there for estrogen management of the Test. I’ve been varying the dose based on bloodwork + how I feel - holding too much water and feeling blaoted, a .25 more, feeling dry, cut it back. That is not meant as medical advice of course, but it’s worked fine for me. Estradiol levels on bloodwork have been where I want them (Around 20). Since test levels are low I haven’t needed much Adex (esp. since Nolva is in for HPTA stimulation per KSMan’s PCT thread, and that acts as a safety measure for gyno too).

I never spend money on legal supplements except fish oil and vitamin D3. I’ve always found they weren’t that much benefit for the money. So I don’t have any experience there.

You could check out this old thread for some Tren/Test info: 2-Week Cycle Layout - Pharma - Forums - T Nation

And check out Ross’s log if you haven’t, he was running Test+Tren in his last 4 week.

Bunk tren… sorry to hear…also are you injecting EOD? Any dry joints with the adex? I’m about to run a test-p/tren-a cycle and little cautious as my left knee can be sore sometimes…and I’ve seen people not take it on-cycle, so I’m thinking maybe take the AI low doses E3D

[quote]applenow wrote:
Bunk tren… sorry to hear…also are you injecting EOD? Any dry joints with the adex? I’m about to run a test-p/tren-a cycle and little cautious as my left knee can be sore sometimes…and I’ve seen people not take it on-cycle, so I’m thinking maybe take the AI low doses E3D[/quote]

Injecting ED to keep blood levels stable. Prop drops off @ 36 hours pretty drastically from the charts I’ve seen, I believe Tren has a shorter half life than that. It keeps the shot volumes 1/2 of what they’d be ED which is pretty nice, and I don’t mind injecting.

No issues with dry joints at all, but I don’t run a ton of adex. My dosage has been such that I hold a good bit of water while on cycle. Can’t say if this dose works for everyone but it works for me.

I haven’t had joint issues since really dialing in technique with my current coach, though. Except elbow from tons of extensions.

[quote]KSman wrote:
Overall, the amount of anastrozole needed is 1mg/week for every 100mg T per week…
[/quote]

Are you saying for someone using 750mg test a week that they should use 7mg of anastrozole per week?

Also another question… are you running any sort of cycle support atmo? I got a free bottle and I’m thinking might as well to help the liver/kidneys out and BP…

[quote]gaintrain wrote:

[quote]KSman wrote:
Overall, the amount of anastrozole needed is 1mg/week for every 100mg T per week…
[/quote]

Are you saying for someone using 750mg test a week that they should use 7mg of anastrozole per week?
[/quote]

That linearity exists for TRT guys. I really do not know when that relationship breaks down as we do not have years of BB guys reporting labs and trying to get near E2=22pg/ml. Add the other non- testosterone gear that guys take things would be confused. If orals mess with AST/ALT, E2 clearance can be interfered with and E2 could be very high. And excessive amounts of SERMs and/or hCG can create high levels of T–>E2 inside the testes and T levels there can be around 80 time higher than serum T levels; so a competitive AI simply is ineffective in controlling E2 generated that way.

So while there are unknowns, something needs to be better than guys taking 1mg anastrozole with high amounts of testosterone. There seems to be an ethic that BB guys don’t need to worry about E2 unless they get gyno or emotional. Seeing how E2 ruins life in a TRT context, I can see how BB guys could get roid rage simply because their brains are getting messed up with estrogens.

During puberty, testosterone increased and caring/nurturing circuits get pruned, a period of confusion and confused behavior. In later life if estrogen levels get high [upper 30’s pg/ml], one can become moody, intolerant and short tempered. So ones personality and behavior can suffer well before gyno is an obvious issue.

Estrogens are also toxic to the endothelium. The one cell thick layer of cells that separate the blood from the structure of arteries and veins.

Guys who spend huge amounts on gear and diet should be very concerned with how estrogen affects fat deposits. Labs should be more of a norm than an exception. And then we have guys who take E2 to single digits. That can mess up cholesterol profiles, cause depression and kill libido.